About Me

Stephen L. Pruitt is Kentucky's sixth commissioner of education. He was selected for the position in September 2015.
Pruitt previously served as senior vice president with Achieve, Inc., a national nonpartisian, non-profit education reform organization, where he organized the development of the Next Generation Science Standards.
A native of Georgia, he started his education career as a high school chemistry teacher in Fayetteville and Tyron, Georgia. He later served as the science and mathematics program manager and director of academic standards with the Georgia Department of Education. Subsequently, he was named associate state superintendent for assessment and accountability and ultimately chief of staff for the Georgia Department of Education.
Pruitt holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from North Georgia College and State University, a master's degree in science education from the University of West Georgia and a Doctorate of Philosophy in chemistry education from Auburn University.

Search This Blog

Friday, November 7, 2014

Community collaboration stretches preschool dollars

This
week, Chief of Staff Tommy Floyd, who represents the Kentucky Department of
Education on the Governor’s Early Childhood Advisory Council, is my guest blogger. The topic is preschool and how to serve
more children who could benefit from a quality early learning experience with
the limited funding available.

Terry Holliday, Ph.D.

Education Commissioner

In the coming weeks, the Kentucky
Department of Education will be releasing results from the Kindergarten
readiness screen of students beginning school this year. Superintendents know
how important this data is to students and their future. Children who start
behind in school may stay behind. Yet, high quality preschool can make a
difference.

We are fortunate this year that Gov.
Steve Beshear and the state legislature provided districts with additional
funding for preschool. That additional funding, however, came with an expansion
of eligibility guidelines, which means many districts also saw their preschool
enrollment increase this fall.

With limited resources, many
superintendents are asking: How can I stretch my state preschool funding so
that more students will be ready when they start school?”

Terry Tolan, executive director of
the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood, and Rick Hulefeld, founder and executive director of
Children, Inc. in northern Kentucky, recently shared with me a model that some
districts are using that has allowed them to serve more preschoolers – for less
– through collaboration with community programs like Head Start and STARS-rated
early childhood centers.

Here’s one example: a private early
childhood center in a district serves 18 children in the 4-year-old classroom,
12 of the children are from families whose income is at or below 160 percent of
the federal poverty line. The school system places a half-time early childhood
teacher in the center, and the early childhood center provides the half-time
assistant. The school district would be reimbursed for the 12 children. The
early learning center would still receive its usual child care reimbursement
and parent co-pay.

How does this stretch the district’s
preschool dollars? The district is not paying for a half- day teacher
assistant. The district is not retrofitting and/or equipping another classroom
or paying for janitor and/or utilities. It also may result in reduced
transportation costs because parents may drop off and/or pick up their child
before and after work. Most importantly, the school district has ensured that
18 children will be ready for kindergarten not just 12.

This model also offers many more
benefits:

• The child spends more time in
the classroom, less time being transported.• There is greater alignment
between the two halves of the day.• The child is in a full-day,
full-year program that hopefully is more effective with the presence of
the school district’s teacher.• The teacher has more contact
with the family through the assistant teacher.• The transitions between home,
school and child care seamless – a big support for working families.• The early learning center,
which is typically open more than 10 hours a day benefits by reducing its
staffing costs.• Other forms of sharing between
the school and care provider may result, for example, around training.

It is important to note that many of
the benefits listed still occur if the partnership takes place in the
district’s classrooms with the district providing the half-day teacher and the
early childhood organization providing the assistant and the wrap-around care.

Using a mixed model for delivering
preschool will result in districts serving more children at reduced cost and,
even more importantly, improve outcomes for children in the district.

As superintendents begin developing
their 2015-16 budgets, I encourage them to consider this model and begin
identifying potential early childhood partners in their community that may be
willing to join with schools in an effort to ensure more students are ready for
learning on their first day of school.